UT2003 Style Mutator Pack

[9ades]

Yes, there are sooooo, sooooo many freaking settings they could have EASILY put into defaultproperties, to make it much, much easier for mutator coders (and in particular, those who can change default properties easily, but can't really code otherwise .... like me!).

Looking interesting anyways!

[Skred]

About the Shock Sounds:

When you granted me permisson to use your sounds, I was able to implement them rather easily, and they seem to be working correctly within the UC stuff.

I'm thinking it's time to pass you my stuff so you can merge everything Emerald. I consider you and Sly "authors" as well in the whole thing now so, I guess we're a team

Just PM me when you are ready, and I'll send you the current stuff in a nice and tidy .rar file
( As far as I can tell all UC stuff needs is to address the new "bug" that has been rearing it's head and the Link and shock hihg res textures)

Sly said he's on track with the link skin, and I will be doing the shock reallyy soon. I'm making decent progress on my injury and then I get a LONG break pretty soon for christmas from school. I estimate I can re-paint the shock skin (main) in a matter of 2-3 days; once I can actaully work at the PC pain free.

[xi0s]

So does anyone know of a UT2003-style fast weapon switch mutator for UT2004?

Of all things, this mutator doesn't seem to have that.

[GreatEmerald]

That's because it's alredy in the game

[xi0s]

Ah yes, I see it now. BTW messaging you on your website is broken.

[GreatEmerald]

Yeap, I know and I've informed the administrator about that. Hopefully will be fixed soon.

[GreatEmerald]

All right, according to my TODO list, this is the next project I need to look over. So, are there any bugs to be found here (except the ones noted on the first page)? Any other additions that could go into this pack? I think I have a fixed fast switching mutator to put into it already. Another idea is to fix the original UT2003 announcer and add a few more announcements that were unused before.

[arbee]

What about earlier UT2003/UC announcers?

[GreatEmerald]

Well, I don't have the files for the UC announcers, if there were any unique ones. As for anything from UT2003, I could get them. I'll see if there is anything missing. From what I recall, there are some more unused announcement in UT2003 files, too. But I'm not sure how easy it will be to integrate them into Bombing Run...

[GreatEmerald]

Now I remembered that there is another DeRes effect used in UT2003 (it uses cubes for a very interesting Matrix-like effect), and I should try to add the "Medic!"/"Nice!" shouts for bots once again. Perhaps also see if anything can be done about double domination announcements (Averted vs Narrowly Averted). Also, teleportation effect and sounds.

By the way, what was the UT2003 UI mod called again? And is there anything similar for the menus?

[GreatEmerald]

I started working on the announcements today. I already have some unique ones in use in the game, thanks to the UT2004 dynamic sound system. That will allow the announcer pack to be used offline without a mutator, although I'll also make a mutator for things that don't have existing sound hooks (like Averted/Red Pass Completed).

[DougC-Icarus]

By the way, what was the UT2003 UI mod called again? And is there anything similar for the menus?

Alternate HUD? I mean that is the only one I can think off. It does have an option to use UT2003 style HUD if that is what you meant.

As for the menu, I don't anyone created a mod for it.

[GreatEmerald]

Ah, yes, that's it! I wonder if the author can still be contacted. Tweaking a few things here and there and then adding it to the pack would be a really nice thing. Although I guess I could also just include a link and a configuration file. But then it's not as clean.

In the mean while, I've now integrated most of the special announcements from UT2003, including "Team Interception!", "Squeeze Play!", "Team Pass Completed!", "Averted!", "Team Killer!", "Team is destroying the opposition!", "Team is falling behind!", "Team is on a roll!" etc. Some require a mutator, some don't. In fact, the only unique announcements that I haven't used yet are "Tag 'em and bag 'em" (sounds like a taunt and I have no clue where it would be used), "Spawn Killer" (not sure how to find out whether the killer is one or not, as I don't think there are any time since player spawn counters available, and counting manually would be somewhat difficult), "Player was out of bounds" (no clue where to use that one, unless when ball falls out of the world, but then we have Ball Reset) and "Your teammates are linking up" (I don't think it's very informative, as you can usually see that yourself).

[GreatEmerald]

I took another trek though UT2003 and noticed a few more differences, namely:

• Redeemer UI has a "wide oval" look
• HUD is slightly different, the weapon bar is below the ammo/health indicators, not aside, and it doesn't change size
• Teleportation effect is different, it creates rings and the source of teleportation has smaller particles going upwards
• Teleportation sound is different, it's a kind of a "zwooorsh" effect
• Ragdoll sounds are different, more squishy and less cartoony
• UDamage end sounds are the same as the pickup sound
• Small shields stack

So, I tried implementing some of these back into UT2004.

Just to confirm that Epic did a hacky job doing some of the changes between UT2003 and UT2004, it appears that you have to replace pawns in order to make the UDamage ending sound to be right (well, Epic themselves simply replaced the resources, but that's not just hacky, but rather outright unfair), as well as to make small shields stack (as they do in UT2003). Both of these could have been prevented by putting in two variables instead of hardcoding them! Argh!

But no fear! Epic might have done a hacky job, but nothing is preventing me from deploying a successful counterhack! With the shield stacking, pawns filter out shields that have 50 power. So I made it so small shields give randomly either 49 or 51 shields! And for UDamage sounds, they luckily added a loophole which I can use to change their stock UDamageTimer class with my own one. As it is now, the UDamageTimer actor's existence is checked, and if it's not spawned, it gets spawned every time you pick up a UDamage. Then the UDamageTimer's Timer() is started. Then the xPawn actor forgets all about it, expecting it to self-destruct. But if I make it so that my custom UDamageTimer is spawned and applied just before its processing is given to the xPawn, the xPawn sees that a UDamageTimer already exists ("Oh gee, I think I already have a UDamage! Let's just restart its timer!") and therefore doesn't overwrite our custom UDamageTimer, which in turn proceeds to play our custom sound! Successful counterhacks deployed!

Also implemented the UT2003 teleportation effects and sounds. They are so soothing! And added ragdoll sounds from UT2003. All of these changes (except the UDamage one) are now in a separate mutator, "[UT2003 Style] Extra functionality", since they don't require you to have weapons replaced and therefore can be used with other Arena mutators.

[arbee]

The UT2003 menu is still in UT2004 but it has broken graphics and some of the functionality is gone. You can't even properly start a map on a gametype you want.

I never liked UT2004's "flashy" menu graphics, all those characters and the impact font made it more cheesy than UT2003 and didn't age as well.

[GreatEmerald]

Now I returned the UT2003 Redeemer view, and the "death phrases" from UT2003. The phrases get played randomly (5% chance) after getting killed instead of the dying sound. Things like "Medic!", "Nice!" etc. Funny how automatons play "Mechanic!" instead of "Medic!" They also have some normally unspoken lines, like "Rerouting critical systems" and "You adapt well".

The UT2003 menu is still in UT2004 but it has broken graphics and some of the functionality is gone. You can't even properly start a map on a gametype you want.

I never liked UT2004's "flashy" menu graphics, all those characters and the impact font made it more cheesy than UT2003 and didn't age as well.

Hmm. I saw that the sounds are still there, and the backgrounds. I'd imagine that getting all of the UI functionality from UT2003 should be a matter of copy-pasting things. Though I guess that there are some UI elements that UT2003 didn't support yet UT2004 does... And, of course, this can't be done via a mutator, it would need to be a total conversion. Still, something to think about.

[GreatEmerald]

Now I looked more into the Alternative HUDs mutator, and huh, it appears that it needs no changes after all. The thing is that it adds two mutators, one called "Alternative HUDs" and another one called "UT2003 HUD". The former is very true to the original, while the latter isn't.

Fixed the BioRifle alt fire to shoot physics-defying blobs like in UT2003 (where big blobs fly just as fast as small ones). Perhaps when you charge, you not only add more goop in there, but also a few more batteries for a stronger push

I'll have a look at the instagib mutators, third person Shock Rifle mesh skins, online play, and do a few more tweaks here and there, but overall it seems that there is not much else I need to do. If anyone else have found any bugs, or any other differences between UT2003 and UT2004 not covered by this mutator, please let me know.

[GreatEmerald]

So I fixed the instagib mutator to give you the UT2003 translocator, reset the sounds of the Onslaught weapons to the original ones (the others were not true to the original), and gave all of the UT2003 weapons UT2003 icons (had to scale them down to fit in the bar, but it looks good). Will have to do a few more online tests and review the celebration mutator, but generally everything looks good, so the release is not far off.

EDIT: Preliminary online tests are very promising, so far only one thing that I found wasn't working (and I'm not sure if it's possible to fix it, either). Still needs more testing, though. Also, improved the Celebration mutator to be more reliable, and did cleanup (removed log statements, improved safety of announcer message calls, etc.).

[GreatEmerald]

Did a bit more cleanup today, solved a few issues caused by the previous cleanup, also adjusted the Link Gun to animate properly when using the alternative fire. So far nearly everything works right online, too. Just a few more tests and we'll be ready for release.

[UnShame]

custom loading screens don't work

[GreatEmerald]

Well, I tested this on a new installation, and it worked just fine. So it must be something on your end. Did you follow the instructions in the readme?

In other news, since there were no more bug reports, I think I'll release this tomorrow. So far I've only found 3 minor bugs, all of which I don't really know how to fix, so that's good enough for a release.

[GreatEmerald]

And here we go, this is the RC2 release of the mutator pack:
http://greatemerald.xmpcommunity.com...ator-pack.html

Here are the changes from RC1 in a condensed form:

[RC2.0] + Added the UT2003 Full announcer to the pack, which uses a lot more announcements than the original.
[RC2.0] + Added the [UT2003 Style] Extra Functionality mutator that enables death phrases, UT2003 teleportation effects and sounds as well as UT2003 ragdoll sounds.
[RC2.0] + Added the [UT2003 Style] Extra Announcements mutator that adds hooks for some extra announcements for use in Double Domination and Bombing Run.
[RC2.0] ! The Redeemer guided missile now uses the UT2003 HUD (oval) instead of the UT2004 one.
[RC2.0] * Double Damage now uses correct UT2003 sounds when nearly exhausted.
[RC2.0] ! Small shields now stack.
[RC2.0] * The Bio Rifle alt fire now travels as far as the primary fire, regardless of blob size.
[RC2.0] * The instagib mutators now properly use the UT2003 translocator.
[RC2.0] # Reverted the sounds of the Onslaught weapons, as they were not fitting.
[RC2.0] ! The UT2003 weapons now use UT2003 icons (white outlines).
[RC2.0] * The Winner Taunts mutator now uses a lot more reliable way of playing the taunts.
[RC2.0] * Removed overlooked log statements to keep the logs clean.
[RC2.0] * The Link Gun alternate fire now animates properly.
[RC2.0] & Performed online tests, and the mod is now network-ready.
[RC2.0] * Cleaned up and updated the readme.

Enjoy!

[GreatEmerald]

And here's a video preview to show what the mod does in more visual detail: